Forgiveness
by Kaija West
Summary: Casey thinks about how things could have ended much differently while at the rehearsal dinner. Takes place between episodes 2x21 and 2x22.


Disclaimer: They're not mine please don't sue me

This has been sitting in my computer gathering dust for quite awhile, heh. It has not been beta'd, or read by anybody actually, so all the mistakes are my own fault.

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One little head tilt. It's that little, subtle action that undoes him. Not the big, dramatic moments, though God knows there's been plenty of those during the past couple years. Hell, there's been more danger and running in the past few days than the last month all put together...

Casey's trying not to let his mind slide too far off track. It's not like he's never received orders he didn't want to follow before. And he certainly has had plenty of experience with commands and missions changing mid-swing. Hell, if everything occurred exactly as planned at the outset, he'd be more than wary on any given mission.

Casey snorts as he watches Walker and Chuck putting on a show on the dance floor. He can count on one hand (okay, one finger) the number of wedding rehearsal dinners he's attended (or, at any rate been actually INVITED to attend). Somehow he thought it was just a formal dinner not this pre-party nonsense.

He takes another swallow of his drink and tries not to imagine red laser site spots on heads and chests and upper backs as Chuck and Sarah twirl around the tiny dance floor. Which is to say, he tries to block those mental, red dot harbingers of death on the smiling and laughing pair. Pretty much everyone else in the place can keep their imaginary bulls eyes for all he cares.

Ellie catches his eye from across the room where she's talking excitedly with another couple. Her arm is linked through Devon's and when she smiles at him, Casey remembers how she was so genuinely pleased he had come to the dinner. She'd pulled him into a hug (as had Devon, somewhat to Casey's chagrin) when he'd arrived and said how good it was the Chuck had a mature and stable friend to bring along. It meant so much to her to have Chuck's friends (she'd then amended it to "OUR friends," smiling at her soon to be husband) present.

Okay fine. Maybe he didn't need to have his mental targets on EVERYONE in the place.

A trio of slightly tipsy guests bumped into him, nearly slipping his drink before continuing past without so much as a "Sorry." Casey felt the growl rumbling in his chest as his thoughts were broken by the interruption.

'Oh, that's right, I was just trying to bend my brain around not killing traitorous little CIA agents and half empty headed nerds,' Casey's inner voice reminded him as he tossed back the last of his drink.

This was all too personal, this mission had taken too much time and frustration. He'd worked longer assignments but never so closely with the same people day after day. He'd never had to insert himself into a full and real life for this long. His work was usually the quick and dirty type and it had a pattern of ending that same way every time.

Every time until now.

And it could have all been over and done with in two easy shots.

Casey scowled at Chuck as he watched the goof-ball doing some strange, jerky dance much to the apparent delight of agent Walker (and the rest of the dance floor as they cheered him on).

He headed to the bar, ordering up another drink before returning to the spot he'd taken up before. The layout of the restaurant/bar made it easy to see across the room. A sunken center area had been cleared of tables and was now serving as the dance floor and one of the surrounding higher bar tables made a comfortable spot to roost for Casey. Perfect visibility, minimal interaction. Add a lowball of whiskey and what more could he ask for?

A lot actually since this wasn't his idea of a fun night and wasn't exactly job required anymore. But at least it was minimally painful.

Casey barely noticed the song changes, the shift in people around the room, the increase in volume of the patrons. It registered in some part of his brain that never totally shut details out. But the rest of his mind was trying very, very hard not to keep circling back to the fact that he had damned near made this night an impossibility.

Casey was confident that Ellie wouldn't be smiling and making excited conversation with everyone around her if things had gone differently.

Sarah wouldn't be letting herself be looped around and throwing her head back in laughter. She wouldn't be so carefree to clearly not be paying attention to the front and back exits of the restaurant, ignoring all the guests who were mindlessly bouncing around them, near enough to, if nothing else, be a danger of elbowing one of them in the eye. Although now that he thought about it if anyone was going to accidentally hurt them it'd be Chuck himself. It still didn't seem possible that a man could be so gangly. He was like an overgrown teenager who hadn't ever learned where his long arms and legs ended. He'd always thought it was a shame, Bartowski was certainly wiry enough. Had the nerd ever bothered to learn how to control those flailing limbs he would have excellent reach in a flight rather than just using his legs as objects to nearly trip over every time he ran.

'Probably would be able to touch the walls on either side of his cell,' he thought. But then, it was almost a body bag instead and that was worse, right?

Casey took another gulp of his drink. He just couldn't seem to let this go. It was done (or actually not done, thankfully) and he knew from experience that ruminating on the maybes of unfollowed orders was both unproductive and potentially undermining. He'd made his choices, things had turned out alright. Better than alright when he though of the destruction of all those Fulcrum agents in the decimated driveinn.

But going against orders, siding with traitors - covering for a traitor! It didn't sit well. Not well at all. Ends justified means to a point, but it was a slippery slope of questionable decision making and he'd see too many others on both sides (on EVERY side...) go down that path.

Everything HAD to come down to following orders and picking and choosing which to follow wasn't his job.

But then again wasn't that exactly the kind of periodic judgements that were the privileges and rights of Colonels?

Casey sighed and tried yet again to stuff down the conflicting feelings and thoughts he really didn't need to be having right now. 'How the hell did this happen?' he asked himself for the thousandth time in the past few months. Get in, get the job done and get out clean. That's all that used to matter. Getting pulled into this Bartowski web of life had complicated things is his job and head in ways Casey never saw coming.

"Oh, I'm so glad you made it!" Ellie said all smiles and sincerity. She'd appeared at his side without his even noticing. Not exactly true, just that he'd unconsciously labeled her as "not a threat" and therefore barely taken notice of her approach and arrival.

"Happy to be here. Congratulations," Casey said smoothly, if not totally sincerely.

"You know, it's just with Chuck's friends, I didn't know who he'd be bringing here, well other than Sarah of course," Ellie continued. In her pre-wedding excitement her words came out quickly and Casey was more aware of the family resemblance than usual as enthusiasm and honesty poured out of her. "We don't have a lot of family, I don't know how much Chuck's told you, and it's like having you here is so important. Plus, if things get out of hand I know you could totally toss bad people out of here."

Casey looked at Ellie confused and hoping he didn't have to go rip the tongue out of her fiancee. He was pretty sure that kind of behaviour was frowned at during these events.

Seeing his confusion Ellie amended, "I mean you're bigger than Devon. If we need an emergency bouncer on the fly it's good to know we have one. You make me feel safe. You can keep us all safe!"

"Okay babe. Just take a few breaths," Devon said as he circled an arm around Ellie. Leaning in closer, he quietly said to Casey, "Sorry bro, she's just really worked up. Normal lady wedding stuff, you know?" He gave Casey a wink and flashed a smile that said everything was in order - no secrets had gotten out.

Casey nodded and Devon in typical Captain Awesome style led Ellie to a new group of guests to talk out more of her energy. Yeah, add some emotional stress and the Bartowski genes became a lot more recognizable.

But as the happy couple moved away Casey's ears still rang, not with Devon's reassurances but with what Ellie had said. Keep everyone safe? He'd come dangerously close to putting a bullet between her brother's eyes.

And a matching one for Walker too.

And no matter how hard he was trying he just could not let it go. What's worse, he couldn't believe how much that was bothering him.

He caught sight of Sarah making her way to one of the few small tables that had been pushed to the sides of the dance floor. Chuck was getting a couple glasses of water at the bar. By the time Casey had made it to where Sarah was seated, Chuck had returned.

Casey was about to excuse himself for the evening when Ellie flounced over to the group, camera in hand.

"Alright, squeeze in you three!" she directed. Sarah remained seated but turned in her chair to face the camera. Casey saw the bright red toes of her bare feet hidden just under the tablecloth along with a pair of unsensibly pointy shoes.

Chuck moved in to stand behind her, a hand very naturally resting on Sarah's bare shoulder. Casey moved fractionally closer to them.

"John, get in there!" Ellie motioned for him to squish in close to the posing pair.

Despite 4 glasses of whiskey, Casey sill had a whirl of unnatural, decidedly un-Casey like thoughts still bouncing around in his head. The thought of getting close right now was not appealing to put it mildly.

'If you knew,' he thought looking a Ellie. 'If you knew what I almost had to do you'd want me a thousand miles away from them.'

"Closer!" Ellie demanded. She was apparently the last person with a digital camera who still felt the need to look through the view finder rather than consult the LCD screen - a thought that wouldn't have been amusing in the least to him in his pre-Buy More days.

Suppressing a growl, Casey shifted so that he was touching shoulders with Chuck.

'Can you feel guilty for something that never was? For a mistake you didn't make?' Casey didn't normally even feel regret for the actions he HAD followed through on. Pride, satisfaction, sometimes indifference sure - but guilt?

"One ... Two ..." Ellie counted off giving her subjects time to smile. Well, only one of them hadn't offered up his pearly whites right away.

Casey felt a strange pressure on his shoulder. He looked over to see a mop of curly brown hair perched on his left shoulder.

Chuck had actually tilted his head onto Casey's shoulder like a big, dopey girl for a picture?!?

A feeling other than surprise overtook Casey. At Ellie's exclamation of "Three!" he smiled for the camera.

It was the easiest smile he'd ever given.

Forgiveness was not something he received often, in any form. He didn't feel the need to seek it and most times it wasn't even a possibility when he was done his job. When Chuck had come by his apartment and invited him tonight he'd been confused. All night he'd spent watching the Bartowski's, Sarah and Devon and he'd felt conflicted. By the time he realized that what he mostly felt was guilt, not over the actions he'd taken but over the alternative that he'd almost done, Casey had barely time to process it before Chuck had relieved all the mess of thoughts in his head.

Something as simple and spontaneous as posing for a picture with his goofy head on Casey's shoulder had been enough to make everything that was rattling around in my mind settle and rest.

Casey stayed till the end of the night with Chuck and Sarah before heading home. As soon as he got through the door he'd gone to his fireplace and yanked down the picture of a nerdy looking Chuck with a bullet hole through the paper. He used the fireplace that night for the first and only time when he burned the picture, sweeping up the ashes afterwards. He tossed the weightless black and grey dust out of the dust pan in into the courtyard, watching as it was caught by the wind, spreading a dissipating into nothing.

Page three of Ellie and Devon Woodcomb's wedding album will forever display the picture snapped the night of the rehearsal dinner of Sarah, Chuck and John Casey.


End file.
